


Understanding of the Dark

by everythingmurky



Series: Valley of the Shadow [1]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Other, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-18 04:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9367262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingmurky/pseuds/everythingmurky
Summary: Hardy becomes the focus of Joe Miller's revenge after he's forced to leave Broadchurch. Tipped off by his daughter, Ellie works to find him before it's too late.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, um, this falls under the category of "should never have written." 
> 
> It's just... I found myself needing something after watching season two for the second (third?) time that actually dealt with what happened to Joe afterward, and as much as I love some good Hardy/Miller fluff to get there, that's not where my brain went. Mine is darker and a lot more... um, bent, I believe the phrase is. 
> 
> There will be unpleasant parts of this, though I'm not really into given graphic detail as much as I am apparently unable to avoid dark territory.

* * *

“Where to then, sir?”

Hardy decided not to make a liar out of himself, even if he had a sudden qualm about showing up on his daughter's doorstep. She probably wouldn't even want him to, and that was not something he wanted to face, even if he knew he wanted to be close to her. Fixing his relationship with his daughter was the only purpose he had left now that the Sandbrook case was done.

Oh, there was trying to reopen Miller's case, put that bent husband of hers away, but that wasn't something he felt would happen any time soon. Joe would be careful. He'd gotten free, so he'd want to keep that. He might take his time in the press, make himself look the victim as his defense team had made him out to be, but other than that, he'd be smart to keep his head down and try and move on, live some sort of quiet life.

“Sandbrook,” Hardy said, leaning back against the seat and closing his eyes.

The taxi pulled away, moving into the other traffic, and Hardy dug into his pocket, taking out his phone.

He pulled up the screen and started typing. _Daisy, it's Dad. Know you're probably busy, but I will be in town later tonight. If you're free, you want to get something to eat? Dinner. Or dessert. Or nothing. Just... think about it, yeah?_

He grimaced when he read it over, but he sent it anyway, knowing that he wouldn't manage anything better if he did try and rewrite it, so there was no point.

Still, he felt a little better for sending it, making his first attempt to close the gap between him and his daughter.

* * *

Daisy got her father's text in the middle of her friends, and she backed away from them to look at it, frowning. She knew her father, knew the way he communicated—short and sharp or winding and rambling, babbling on because he was just that bad with people. He'd been nervous about that message he'd sent her.

She sighed. She wanted to see her father, needed to know for herself that he was fine—no more broken heart, he'd claimed but was that true? Had her mother lied when she said he was recovering? Was that why he hadn't called?

“Daize, you're coming with us, right?”

She thought about what they were supposed to be doing that night and nodded, putting her phone away and forcing a smile.

If she changed her mind, she could always text her father later.

Besides, he'd be too tired to do anything when he got here, right?

* * *

_“You remember what I told you?”_

_Hardy frowned at his mother, not sure what she meant. She'd said many things over his lifetime, and it wasn't like he could just pin one of them down and say it was the one, especially not now, not when she was so confused and all over, barely aware of where she was or who she was talking to._

_Least she never mistook him for his father. He didn't think he could have stood for that._

_“Never said it wouldn't be without pain.”_

_Hardy blinked, still confused. “I don't—”_

_“God puts you where you're supposed to be,” she said, and he just stared at her. “Though sometimes it hurts.”_

_“You telling me that this—” he had to stop his rant, all the angry words coming at him, “this is where you're supposed to be?”_

_“God puts you in the right place at the right time,” she insisted. “Even if you don't know it at the time.”_

_He shook his head. Un-bloody-believable._

* * *

The motor stopped, and Hardy jerked awake, frowning. He'd expected not to stop before reaching Sandbrook, though he supposed even cab drivers were human, needing facilities and the like, though he hadn't wanted to stop and would prefer just to get to Sandbrook. He needed to book a room for the night and try Daisy again.

She didn't want to see him. He had to accept that.

He started to stretch, and the door next to him jerked open. He turned, about to give the driver or whoever the hell it was a dressing down, but a rag came at his face, and he couldn't breathe. His heart sped up, and he pushed weakly at the rag, trying to get it away from him. He felt the pacemaker go off just before everything went dark.

* * *

“Is this DS Miller?”

Ellie grimaced, checking the number and wondering why she'd been stupid enough to answer her phone without looking in the first place. She knew better than that with Joe out there. Wasn't like she really thought he was going to accept that he wasn't coming back, did she? 

No, if she was honest, she didn't believe it. She thought he'd be back, that he'd try again to get to his sons. He might even try to get Tom in a position to finish what he'd started with Danny.

“It is. I'm not giving any bloody interviews and I—”

“Did my father really leave Broadchurch?”

Ellie tensed, frowning. “Your father? Who the hell is—Oh, no. Tell me you are not Daisy Hardy.”

“I am,” the girl on the other end of the line said. “Please. I got this number from my mother who thinks I'm overreacting, but Dad texted me saying he'd be in town tonight, but he should have been here by now, and he's not. Yeah, sure, maybe he's late, or maybe his broken heart isn't as fixed as he told me it was—what if he's dead somewhere along the way?”

“You haven't heard from your father since he texted you he was leaving Broadchurch?”

“No,” Daisy answered. “I thought maybe he was upset I didn't answer back right away—I had plans, and I was trying to figure out how to say I didn't want to see him—but I did want to see him—and so I said I couldn't. Then... Hour later, I felt guilty. Said I did.”

“Said?”

“Sent a text. He didn't answer. I thought maybe he was mad after the first one, so upset he wouldn't even look at the next one, so I... I called. I called and called, over and over again. I tried to tell myself he was just asleep or in a bad service area, but he hasn't picked up. Not once, and it's been hours. It's going right to the mail now.” Daisy's voice had increased in speed and pitch as she spoke, sounding increasingly more agitated and panicked. “Dad's not answering. Could his pacemaker have failed? Is he dead?”

Ellie winced. She didn't know, but now that she'd heard Daisy's version of events, she was concerned. “I... I didn't wait around for him to take his cab. He said not to, and we're not—”

“Can you make sure that Dad left when he said he did? Can you do that trace thing on his phone? Can we make sure he's not dead?”

“Yes,” Ellie agreed, knowing that she would call in every favor she ever had to make sure that knob hadn't gotten himself killed somewhere along the motorway.

* * *

Hardy gasped for air, dragging himself up out of the river and into awareness. He blinked, trying to make sense of where he was.

A shadow loomed over his face. “I'm not that kind of man. I'm not.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy finds himself in a difficult position as Ellie works with her former team to figure out what happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In part I wanted to do this story because I remain irritated by the trial. It was specifically done to punish every little mistake that the characters made, except the defense, who even with Susan Wright got off easy. It infuriates me.
> 
> Plus, I started this before I had read the novelization and had the author's added explanation into Joe. The show didn't give enough there for me, and I, like Ellie, wanted to understand. From that came this thought that Joe was searching for a bit of it himself, and that was what spawned this, in part.
> 
> Um... you do have to assume that a few days went by since Joe's banishment and when Hardy leaves town for this to work, but I don't think that's too much of a stretch, even if it wasn't clear/seemed shorter on the screen.
> 
> This is also where it will start to become more... unpleasant, even though I'm never one to be very graphic.

* * *

Hardy pulled on the ropes binding his hands above his head. He thought about what the doctors had said about using his left arm, but he doubted that whoever had gone to the trouble of trussing him up like this cared much about his doctor's orders.

Hell, he should be dead, since he doubted that his kidnapper had cared a fig for his health. That rag and his pacemaker should have done him in. He didn't know why he was alive.

And then he remembered.

That voice. Those words.

Joe Miller was a paramedic. Not a doctor, no, but he had emergency training, and he could have brought Hardy back if his little rag had gone too far.

“You're awake.”

“Bloody marvelous of you to state the obvious,” Hardy muttered, giving the ropes another tug. “How'd you manage this?”

“Sold my 'exclusive' to a few news rags to get the money I needed, turned around from that place they tried to dump me in, and found a cab to get back to Broadchurch.”

Hardy knew, even just from those few words, that his fate was sealed, same as the cab driver's had been. “Where'd you leave the body?”

“You expect me to confess to you?”

“You did it once,” Hardy said, not bothering to mention that he didn't actually expect to live through whatever Joe was planning for him. He would be dead when it was over, probably as some sort of revenge. He'd made the arrest, yeah, like Joe seemed to want, but it was more than that. He probably believed that lie the damned defense had used—that he and Miller had an affair.

“I put him somewhere that he won't be found,” Joe said. “Learned that lesson, haven't I?”

“Thought you said you weren't that kind of man.”

“I never hurt Danny,” Joe insisted. “Not Tom. Not Fred. I'm not that man.”

Hardy snorted, and Joe was on him in an instant, grabbing hold of his throat. His fingers tightened around his neck like they must have done Danny's.

“I am not that man.”

Hardy knew he hadn't fixed things with his daughter, and he knew what he was about to do would only make things worse, since goading him would only speed up Hardy's inevitable death. “Yes, you are.”

And again it was hard to breathe.

* * *

“What have we got?”

“Thought you weren't coming back here,” Brian said, and Ellie shrugged. She knew she'd said it, but she'd meant that when Joe was on trial, when she didn't think she could get Tom back or live in her house again. Things had changed.

She wasn't sure she could get back into the office, but she knew she needed to be here now. She needed the resources and the favors.

“Did we get a trace on Hardy's mobile or not?”

“It was turned off.”

Ellie knew that Hardy wasn't always the most responsible man in the universe, especially not when it came to his health, but he was a copper. That didn't shut off for him, even with his nonsense about the former detectives club. He'd still been pushing to solve the Sandbrook case, and if there was anything else of note going on in Broadchurch, Ellie knew he would have nosed his way into it. No, he was too much of a detective to stay out of things, too much of a copper to be without his phone.

“I don't like this,” she said. “Do we know where it was last used?”

“Last text was sent from here in Broadchurch. Last text received was actually... here, along the motorway,” the tech said, pointing to the location on the map. Ellie nodded. That fit with what they knew of Hardy's intended travel path, but it still didn't tell her where he was.

“Can we pinpoint that any further?”

“That's the last activity before it was shut off.”

Ellie nodded. That tracked with what Daisy said. That text was her first one, the one that told her father she wasn't going to meet him. The other ones he hadn't gotten. He might not even have been the one to get the first one. It was hard to say.

“What's in the area where the phone lost service?” Ellie asked. “Is there somewhere he could have stopped? Someplace a car could still be now?”

“Miller,” Brian said. “This isn't my place and not the role I want, but if he pulled over because he was sick—”

“Why no ambulance call?” Ellie finished. “Even if he were taken sick, driver should have been fine. Could be it wasn't him. If it was the driver, then there might not be anyone to call. Excepting, of course, that other motorists should have seen the car on the side of the road. Our patrols go by, so why not one of them?”

“So it wasn't an accident.”

Ellie nodded. She was starting to think that whatever happened to Hardy it was not at all an accident, and that scared her. “We have the plate on the cab? Did we already put out—”

“We've alerted everyone,” a PC told her, “but so far, no response. Maybe we need to tell them we don't think it was an accident or a health crisis?”

Ellie didn't answer that. She shook her head. “Show me the picture of that cab. I want to know everything we can about the driver.”

* * *

Hardy was breathing again, much to his surprise. He'd figured he'd gone ahead and gotten Joe riled up enough to end things, but he'd stopped. Joe had backed off and walked away, leaving Hardy alone in whatever room this was for what seemed like hours. He knew he couldn't be certain of time, not when he lost track of it the way he did even on a normal day.

He gave the bindings another tug, frustrated by his inability to move them even in the slightest. He needed to get himself free if he wanted to live, which he said he wanted to—he was supposed to fix things with Daisy. That meant he had to survive.

Between the lack of progress he mad trying to free himself and the way his pacemaker reacted to it, he figured that wasn't going to happen.

He looked up as the door opened, watching as Joe came back in. He swallowed, a part of him wanting to back away, though he had nowhere to go, not bound like he was.

“You say I'm that sort of man.”

“You said it yourself,” Hardy reminded him, tired. “You said you were in love with him.”

“I never hurt him.”

Hardy snorted. “You bloody killed him. You damn well hurt him.”

Joe didn't respond to that. Hardy had figured on more anger, but the silence was unnerving as the other man came back to his side. He stopped at Hardy's feet, looking over at him. “I wonder if it was just him. Just Danny.”

Hardy frowned. “You think... what? You want to prove somehow that you'd never hurt your sons? That what this is about?”

“It's about understanding,” Joe said. “I told you—how could you understand it when I don't understand it myself?”

“Then why am I—what the bloody hell are you doing?” Hardy demanded as Joe removed his shoe. “What do my feet have to do with anything? Get away from me.”

“All the things I could do to you, and you're complaining about me taking your shoes?”

* * *

“We don't have any better pictures of the cab itself?” Ellie asked, frowning at the one she was holding. This angle was terrible, and worse, blurry. “We need more than this. I need a face. We need a picture to use for door to door—”

“We're not actually asking about in town,” the other DS said. “We've got footage of the cab leaving town.”

“You still need one for asking along the motorway,” she said, and the other man sighed. She supposed she sounded a bit like her boss the knob, but she wanted that photo herself. She knew she wasn't going to be a part of asking those questions. That didn't matter. They still needed it. “What about the company? They have any information on the car itself? Does it have GPS?”

“This is what they gave us on the vehicle and the driver who took it out,” the DS answered. “His phone is also off, and he has not made contact with the company. He doesn't have a family that we're aware of, but it's early hours yet.”

She nodded. She knew it was true, but she couldn't accept that and be fine with as little as they had. Yes, for early hours, they had a lot, more than she figured they had a right to, since Hardy was a grown man who officially couldn't be listed as missing. Still, with his heart condition, some rules could be worked around.

She needed more, though. Hardy was a knob, a selfish, stubborn bastard, but he was a good man, too. She never thought she'd think that, not after he stole her job and made her life hell, after he kept so much from her—bloody heart condition—but she also couldn't forget what he'd done for her after Joe had been arrested. He still irritated her when they worked together, but that distraction had been what she needed.

She'd solved Sandbrook. Not for him, not even for the families. For herself. She reminded herself that she was a good copper, and she needed that after Joe.

Hardy was not a friend.

She still wasn't about to let him die.

She had to find that bloody taxi.

* * *

“You're staring at my bloody feet,” Hardy said, disconcerted on a level he couldn't even begin to explain. He didn't know why the act was so unsettling, but the more Joe did it, the worse he felt. His heart was starting to beat erratically, and he'd have passed out if not for the pacemaker, not that he thought that would save him for much longer.

“One of the first things I noticed about Danny was his shoes. His feet. I was fixing his face after what Mark did, and I looked down,” Joe said, reaching out to touch Hardy's foot. He jerked away from the hand, bumping the wall and groaning. “Something about the shoes...”

Beth Latimer had noticed her son's shoes, too, but for different reason. She'd known he was dead by the trainers he wore.

“I had to see,” Joe went on. “Had to know if it made any difference if it was a man's foot or a woman's.”

Hardy stared at him. “What?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy shows up at the station to meet Ellie. Hardy pushes Joe in an unexpected direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of think, as much as I tried to distract myself with things about cats and trying to come up with some AU or something to write instead, I should just finish this story off and get it done.
> 
> That, and of all things to hang over my head, I think I would not want it to be this one. It's creepy enough without that. It really is.

* * *

“Miss, you can't be here. You have to—”

“I'm not leaving until I speak to Ellie Miller.”

It wouldn't have taken a great detective to know that the girl speaking was Daisy Hardy. Ellie didn't even have to see her resemblance to either of her parents to be sure of it. She had her father's air about her for such a small, thin thing, but then she was a Hardy, and it showed. Maybe Ellie was biased, not giving the mother enough credit in things, but that scowl on Daisy's face was pure Hardy.

“It's all right,” Ellie said. “I've been expecting her.”

“You're Miller,” Daisy said as she crossed the room. “Any word on my dad? Did you find him yet? If he's dead—”

“We don't know that yet,” Ellie told her. “We haven't found him. So far we've had no word of accidents along the road—”

“I know that,” Daisy said, arms folded over her chest. “How do you think I got down here? I would have seen it if there was an accident. Even if it was dark half the time. There weren't any cars on the side of the road. Did someone take my dad?”

“Shouldn't you have waited to see if your father was just late?” Ellie asked, though she knew that he wouldn't have done it—hell, she herself wouldn't have waited about if it was her daughter—or even if it was bloody Hardy.

“Dad's never late like that unless he's dying or on a case,” Daisy said. “Or both.”

Ellie wasn't sure she could argue with that. “I know you're worried—”

“Dad is missing,” Daisy said. “Did... did someone take him? Would they do that? They blamed him for Sandbrook even though it wasn't his fault, and they probably blame him for your husband going free and—”

“As far as I know, no one has gone after him for either of those things,” Ellie tried to assure her. She frowned. “Wait—Sandbrook, you said—”

“I know it was my mom's cock up, not his,” Daisy said, rolling her eyes at her own word choice. “I need to know that my dad is alive.”

“We're doing all we can to find him,” Ellie said. “We've got patrol cars looking for the cab he took, we've been doing research into the driver, we've pulled CCTV, and we've tracked his mobile. So far, we haven't found him or his phone, but we're not done yet.”

“I know you're not supposed to tell me anything, so... thank you,” Daisy said. She still looked worried, and Ellie couldn't blame her. Hardy's disappearance was not good, even if she was sure that he hadn't been taken by a Broadchurch lynch mob. Beth and Mark had organized the group that forced Joe out of the town, and they hadn't wanted to do anything like that to Hardy. Gruff as he was, most of them understood that _he_ had found Danny's killer. It was the rest of them—mainly Ellie—that had let the case fall apart.

“I will find your dad,” Ellie promised her. “I will, I swear it.”

Daisy nodded. “I believe you. I just... I want him to be alive when you do.”

* * *

“Didn't work, looking at my own feet and trying to compare, and no one would let me near a child now, but I've got you,” Joe said, taking hold of Hardy's foot and actually running his fingers over it. The motion tickled, but Hardy refused to react. He held himself still, tried to keep his breathing and his heart calm.

He felt sick all the same.

“That's why you're staring at my feet? You want to know if you find them attractive?” Hardy spat the last word out, wanting to choke on it. This was repulsive on levels he'd never thought he'd face, even when he worked undercover in the past.

“I need to know what sort of man I am,” Joe said, and the hand moved up Hardy's ankle under his pants. He swallowed, watching Joe with disgust. “I wasn't that man. I wasn't.”

“Congratulations,” Hardy muttered. “That mean you are now?”

Joe moved away from his feet, going toward Hardy's face. “I bet you'd look years younger without that beard.”

Hardy frowned. “You're not serious.”

* * *

“Does your mother know you're here?”

Daisy gave Miller a look, shaking her head. That was a stupid question. “Mum would have stopped me. She thought the same thing you did—that I'd just sit around at home waiting for Dad to show up.”

“He still could.”

Daisy snorted. “Did Dad really let you get away with that sort of talk? Because that's just—I told you. Dad wouldn't have been late. Not unless there was a case, and I know he doesn't have any because he's not on active duty. And there's a chance his pacemaker failed or something else went wrong. I know there is. I'm not bloody stupid.”

“I know that.” Miller shook her head. “You're a lot like your father.”

“Everyone says I'm like me mum. And I hate it,” Daisy muttered. She knew she was mostly just annoyed because all the publicity about the now solved Sandbrook case had dug up an article written here, one that had told the truth about what he'd done, taking the blame for someone who had to have been her mother. “I need to know about my dad, and I can't be hours away waiting for word.”

Miller nodded. “I understand. Still, I doubt you got any rest. If you like, you can come with me by my house, take a few minutes and freshen up.”

“You think I'm gonna be put off by that?”

“No, not a bit,” Miller said with a smile, “but I could use a change of clothes, I've got to take care of my kids, and you could probably do with a break as well. It's a matter of waiting for results to come in, and it could take time.”

“I thought—”

“It's a lot of footage, and my eyes are blurry,” Ellie said. “Please. Let's just take a few minutes, freshen up, and we'll get back to this soon as we can.”

Daisy didn't know that there was anything else she could do, so she finally shrugged and accepted the offer.

* * *

For the first time in years, Hardy was clean shaven. He hadn't been, he didn't think, since he dragged Pippa out of that river. He wasn't sure. He'd forgotten. All he knew was that he'd had a beard before that damned rag came over his face again, and then he woke up with a rolling stomach and a smooth face.

The whole thing was so bloody wrong he wanted the pacemaker to give out and put him out of his misery, but so far it held, keeping him alive and at Joe's demented mercy. He'd have preferred outright torture to this, especially since that would have done the damned device in, just like that.

“I was right,” Joe said. “You _do_ look younger.”

Hardy frowned. “Not young enough for you. You wanted an eleven year old boy.”

“We only hugged.”

Hardy remembered his own questions about those hugs. _Standing up? Sitting down? Clothed? Naked? How long did the hugs last?_ Joe had said it didn't matter, but it did, unfortunately. Understanding what happened there was crucial, as little as Hardy had wanted the details. He knew that Miller had wanted them—she didn't know what she needed, but for her sake, the sake of her sons, they all needed to make sense of Joe's actions.

Here they were months later, and that still had not happened.

“Just a hug,” Joe repeated, and Hardy tensed, pulling back against the wall. He couldn't get anywhere, and he knew that, but Joe unsettled him. He knew people were unknowable, but that didn't mean that they weren't predictable in some ways. Joe seeking revenge, that Hardy had considered when he first heard the plea. Against him, it made sense. He'd found Joe, gotten the confession, and revealed those things to the world.

This, though... This was a strange way of going about it, no mistake, and Hardy was having a hard time sorting out just what might be headed for him. He didn't like it.

“You can't hide behind that forever,” Hardy told him. “What you did... It was still wrong enough for you to kill to stop him from telling anyone about them. If you weren't ashamed of them, you wouldn't have killed Danny.”

“It was only a hug.”

Hardy snorted. “Is that what you call it? Danny wrote about it, you know. Journal on his computer. He said, 'I know what he's doing.' He knew you were grooming him. He knew you were going to push for sex.”

“It was a hug,” Joe insisted. “Just a hug.”

* * *

“You're sure you don't mind watching him for a minute while I shower?” Ellie asked, not sure why Lucy couldn't have taken him on to the childminder when she left. At least Tom was at school so she didn't have to worry about him while she looked for Hardy. She just had Fred on her hands.

And Daisy Hardy.

“Oh, he's not a bother,” Daisy said, and Ellie stopped, staring at her. She thought that Hardy was a lousy liar, but if he was, his daughter wasn't. She almost seemed sincere about that as she held onto Fred, bouncing him in her arms in that unconscious way people did. How did Hardy's daughter have that kind of experience with kids? She had no siblings—wait, was there a half-sibling? Someone that was the wife's but not Hardy's?

Or was Daisy trained by something more financial in nature? Maybe she worked at it. Some kids her age did.

“You're kidding me,” Ellie said. “How is that not a bother?”

Daisy laughed, lifting Fred up in the air. “A little yogurt never hurt anyone. That's what Dad always said, though Mum, she hated it because he let me wear more of it than I ate. Tell you a secret, Fred lad, Dad hates yogurt and hoped I'd hate it, too.”

Ellie found herself wanting to laugh. “That true?”

“You ever see him touch the stuff?” Daisy countered, putting Fred back on her hip. “I dare you to watch him next time he sees it. You'll want pictures of that face.”

“Didn't think he could be a grumpier bastard than he already was.”

Daisy laughed. “Should see him when people try and make him eat chicken, then.”

Ellie frowned. Then the moment passed, and the girl looked half her age as she turned back to Ellie, Fred almost slipping from her grasp.

“You _are_ going to find my dad, right?”

Ellie nodded. “We are. I promise you we've only just started. I am going to take a quick shower, and then I'm going back to work.”

“Right,” Daisy said, reminded of why she had the boy in her arms. “Sure you don't want to take him with you? Clean him up at the same time?”

Ellie shook her head. “It'll take a lot less time if I don't, trust me.”

* * *

Whatever Hardy expected when he pushed Joe about his hugs with Danny, this was not it. He'd figured on a smack or maybe a hand around the throat, something to work up the heart and combine into a nice fatal cocktail.

And his heart _was_ going too fast, though not for any of the reasons he would have thought. He certainly never would have pictured himself being in _this_ position. He didn't think that anyone would have believed it if he told them.

He bloody well wasn't telling anyone about this.

“Just a hug,” Joe said, and Hardy was forced to acknowledge that he truly hated being the small spoon. Joe had come up behind him, putting his arms around Hardy's waist and holding himself against his back.

Hardy tried and failed to contain his reaction to all this. Every thought he had trying to process what was happening to him was compounded by the words his mind pulled up to describe it. His heart beating too fast—that sounded almost like anticipation—the tension and stiffness—bollocks, that was just wrong but it wasn't like he was relaxed and _enjoying_ this, having another man hold him in a disgusting mockery of affection, the same kind he'd given an eleven year old boy.

This made him sick.

He wanted his bloody heart to fail. He wanted it to, right here and now, since this was repulsive and invasive in ways he'd never thought he'd feel. His first hug with Tess after the divorce, that had been bloody awkward, and there were others, too, but this wasn't awkward. It was revolting.

“You think because I'm a grown man this isn't a violation?” Hardy asked, not sure what he heard in his own voice.

“Wouldn't be, would it?” Joe asked, moving his hand up Hardy's chest, somehow managing to miss his pacemaker scar while seeming to be _everywhere_ at the same time. “If I was this sort of man, then no one would say those things about me, would they?”

“So, what, it's better if you assault me instead of molesting Danny? Is that really what you're going to say?” Hardy knew it was, to most people's minds. Even to his, though it was hard to believe when he was right in the middle of it. This wasn't even as bad as it could be, but that didn't make it better. He didn't want to be touched like this.

“If Danny had been older, no one would have cared,” Joe whispered, and Hardy tried to pull away from him only to have Joe pull him closer. It was obscene, even with clothes on, and he thought that Joe knew it.

Though it was ten times worse when the hands went lower and started unbuckling his trousers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rewatching Beth's testimony at the trial made it clear the show had intended Danny's message about "knowing what he was doing" was about knowing about Mark's affair with Becca. I kind of figure even if it was, Hardy would use what he'd seen against Joe, but my impression at first after season one was that it was about Joe, not Mark. I'm wrong, obviously according to the show, but I still like the idea, so I used it anyway.
> 
> And what Hardy said about the description? Yeah, that was me trying to find a way to write what was happening. The words were all wrong, and I should probably have quit then.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy tries to cope with Joe's latest turn. Daisy and Ellie confront a lack of progress and a few unpleasant truths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, I'm hoping to wrap this up fairly quickly. I had enough to update before going off to work, and I should be able to finish it later, I hope.
> 
> I'd like it to be out of my system.
> 
> I got the idea about the pacemaker from another story. Have no idea how accurate that is, but it worked for my purposes.

* * *

“You're exhausted,” Ellie said, taking her son back from Daisy. “Are you sure you want to go back with me?”

“You want me to sit here and wait for word?” Daisy shook her head. “I can't. If I was going to do that, I'd be at home with Mum. She'd want that.”

Ellie figured that Tess was likely on her way down. She had enough feeling for Hardy to take care of him after his surgery—possibly because of his daughter—and that same daughter was here, anxious and waiting for any sign of her father.

“Well, there really isn't a place for you at the station. Isn't a place for me, even, though everyone's let me do what I can,” Ellie said. “Strangely, for all that they didn't like your father much when he was their boss, they do seem to respect him, enough to where they're invested in looking for him.”

“No one cared after Sandbrook,” Daisy said, sounding absolutely miserable. “I don't think that they would have even if they knew about his broken heart.”

“Broken heart? Over your mother?”

Daisy tried to force a smile. “That's what he called it. His heart problem. He called it his 'broken heart.' Not that he wasn't... he was upset when he left. He tried not to show me, but I saw it. When Mum's new boyfriend came around, I figured it out. I knew she'd been the one to end it, not him. Didn't know that it was her who messed up the Sandbrook case until now, but I knew she'd broken the two of them up.”

“I think it must be a curse,” Ellie said, watching Daisy frown at her. “Coming from two detectives like you do. Or is it just... good, you knowing your father so well?”

“I don't know him that well,” Daisy said. “I didn't... he kept things from me, and I let him.”

That was something Ellie knew too well. “That can change.”

“Soon as we find him, you mean.”

“Exactly.”

* * *

“You realize... with my heart... this air... the chill...” 

Hardy hated himself for what he'd just said. He hated himself for using his heart as some kind of desperate excuse, hated himself even more for his near panic at the situation he was now in. Spooning with Joe was sickening, but now... exposed as he was, he had never been more vulnerable.

Or more ashamed.

“I'm aware of your heart problem,” Joe said, running his finger along the still raw scar from the pacemaker surgery.

“You knew,” Hardy said, not sure if the sudden realization had hit him that hard or if it was the same troublesome heart causing problems. He almost couldn't breathe, and they _had_ told him to be careful around the incision. “Paramedic.”

“Seen the signs before,” Joe agreed. “They probably would have needed you to turn blue from lack of oxygen, but not me.”

“That why you pushed that third glass on me that night?”

Joe's finger continued to trace the mark on Hardy's chest. “If you'd died...”

“You would never have confessed to her,” Hardy said, convinced of that. “If she'd been in charge of the investigation—”

“I couldn't tell her. She'd take the boys away from me, like she did. Can't lose them.”

“You did. You did the minute you started in on your son's best friend,” Hardy said, wondering if it would have been Tom if Danny hadn't veered into Joe's path. Tom was more accessible. He already trusted his father. It could have happened before the boy had any sense of the monster his father was.

“I told you—I'm not that sort of man.”

“You haven't fooled me,” Hardy muttered, yanking on the bonds again. “Or have you somehow forgotten you've got me trussed up here, that you've... that you've put your bloody sick hands all over me? This doesn't make you any less of a killer, any less of a pervert—”

“I am not—”

“You are,” Hardy insisted. “You do realize what this is, don't you? This is a crime. Not just the kidnapping, the holding me against my will, the drugs—all of that will be overshadowed by this. This right here. You taking my clothes. Touching me.”

“If Danny was older—”

“What you are doing to me now is still wrong,” Hardy insisted, wanting Joe to get his damned hands off. Why the bloody hell had he survived the pacemaker and Sandbrook for this?

Then again, he supposed maybe Joe might have tried this with his son, and in that case, better Hardy than Tom, but that didn't make it any easier, feeling that bastard's hands on him.

* * *

“Nothing?”

Daisy looked like she'd been kicked in the gut. Ellie wasn't sure why she'd been allowed to hear it, but then she had no good place to put the girl right now. Lucy had the boys, but she hadn't been willing to take on Hardy's daughter, and Daisy was too much like her father to let that happen.

“CCTV tracked the cab leaving town, but that's where the trail ends.”

Ellie shook her head. “I don't understand. There has to be more than this. A man doesn't just vanish into thin air.”

The other detective gave Daisy a glance, and Ellie winced inside, knowing that there was something that they wanted to say that they didn't want her to hear. Not that she should have heard the rest of it, either.

“What about the area near where the mobile last had service?”

“We're still combing it over. There's a lot of ground to cover.”

Ellie nodded, and then her own phone rang, making her almost jump. She gave Daisy her best smile as an apology, excusing herself to move to the side. She answered it, surprised to find Paul Coates on the other end of the line.

“Ellie.” Paul didn't bother with much in the way of pleasantries. “I have—I don't know how to tell you this.”

“Oh, bloody hell,” she said, already knowing what the vicar was about to say.

“I got word from my friend in Sheffield. Joe left. We've got no idea where he is.”

Maybe they didn't, but she had a feeling wherever Joe was, that was where they'd find Hardy.

* * *

Hardy never really thought of himself as a victim before. Not in the crap relationship between his parents, not any time on the job. Even when Tess betrayed him with another man, when she lost vital evidence doing it—Hardy wasn't a victim. He took control of the situation—the wrong way, of course, but he'd had it all the same—and he'd taken the fall to protect Daisy.

He wasn't a victim then, not even of his own poor health. He hated his heart, but he'd never felt like he was a _victim_ of it.

At its mercy, a little, doing his penance in a broken body, yeah.

Only now... Now he would be thought of as one. He'd been abducted. Assaulted. The idea of telling anyone what had passed here between him and Joe made him about as ill as the man's touch did.

Bloody hell. If he hadn't been such a miserable weakling in the first place due to his damned heart, none of this would be happening. Instead it was.

“You realize this won't change anything.”

Joe's hand was spread out against Hardy's stomach. The gesture was possessive, like Joe considered him property, and Hardy's anger and humiliation had already set off his pacemaker twice. He knew he'd die, but to die here, like this... to be found like this...

He should have died on the bloody operating table.

“I needed to understand.”

“This is understanding? You're not understanding a damned thing. This isn't about that. I'm not even sure that what you did to Danny was about that,” Hardy said, having trouble himself with comprehension. Joe could argue he was, what, exploring his sexuality to be sure that he actually was interested in children and not just other males? Was that it? Or was he just having his revenge in one of the worst possible ways?

Why the bloody hell would Joe choose this?

* * *

“Dad's running out of time, isn't he?”

Ellie didn't want to look at Daisy, not sure she could pull off the lie if she did. Even still, would Daisy believe it? She was the daughter of two police officers, wasn't she? She knew her father's chances weren't good, not unless he'd left of his own free will, and even that wasn't without risk because of his condition. The pacemaker might not have been enough to save him.

As it was, Ellie was almost certain that Joe had been involved. He'd somehow managed to overtake Hardy, and he had him now. He did. 

She couldn't be sure, but she didn't think that he had done it on the road. She doubted he'd staged motor trouble and laid in wait. No, she thought she knew how it had been done. Joe had gone after Hardy, and he'd done it right under their bloody noses. She knew now why the cab driver had been so damned camera shy. It was Joe. He drove Hardy out of town without them even realizing it.

Hardy probably hadn't even spoken to him, hadn't noticed the man driving—she knew him well enough to know that wasn't unlikely. As distracted as he was when his mind was on a case—and just because Sandbrook had been solved didn't mean she thought that Hardy was every really off a case—he might never have noticed he was in the same car with Joe.

“Don't they say something about the first twenty-four hours?”

“That's for missing kids,” Ellie said, then winced at what she'd just done. “That's not—your father is stronger than he looks. With his heart problems, he—he should have been resting, but he somehow found a way to keep working instead.”

That was being kind, Ellie thought, since telling her that her idiot wanker of a father should have been dead twenty times over during the course of one case alone was not a good idea. Not unless she wanted to terrify the poor girl, and Daisy was already worried enough.

Daisy turned away, going to the window. “He'd probably tell me I should shut it off.”

“How you feel about him? Damn, I knew he was a knob, but he wouldn't actually tell his daughter not to feel anything for him, would he? Is he that bloody stupid?” Ellie shook her head. “Who am I asking about? Of course he—”

“Not me. Not how I feel. His heart,” Daisy said, and Ellie frowned.

“What?”

“He was joking about it. The pacemaker. He said that they could... there was a remote. He wanted me to put the app on his phone when he saw me next. They could monitor it. So could he.” Tears ran down Daisy's cheeks. “He said I couldn't tell Mum 'cause she'd go around shocking him like a misbehaving puppy. I told him he wasn't funny.”

“He wasn't,” Ellie agreed, feeling sick that Hardy would joke about that with his daughter. “Wait. You can get remote access to his pacemaker?”

“Doctor has it, or so he said.”

Ellie reached over and touched her cheek. “I think you just gave us the way to find your dad, sweetheart.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy considers his options. Ellie works to track his pacemaker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought that I'd be finished with this chapter, but I think it needs more of an epilogue sort of cool down, so that's to come.
> 
> My fault for rewatching Doctor Who (in my defense, I thought that watching Broadchurch again for the sixth time in a row was a bad idea) because I really just wanted to work on my new idea instead of finishing the unsettling one.

* * *

Hardy might not have all the answers, but he had enough to know two things, almost absolutely for certain. If left unchecked, Joe's behavior would end in one of two—maybe three, though that third one was less likely and could even feed into one of the others—ways. Hardy grimaced. No, now that he was thinking about it, they might all have the same end result.

If Joe took this beyond his current state of juvenile groping, then it might mean an actual violation. That assumed that Joe could work himself up to it, but even if he did—or he didn't—then he might kill Hardy afterward. Or he might kill him because he couldn't.

Death seemed, then, inevitable.

He didn't consider himself in a good position to survive. The drugs and his heart were a bad combination, the stress aggravating his condition and setting off the pacemaker. He had worked on the ropes on his hands enough to convince him he wasn't going to get them loose. Even if he did, he wouldn't be able to run. He doubted he'd make it to the door. If he did, where would he go? He didn't know where he was.

That made his options limited. Limited to one realistic outcome. Death.

He had lived to find Danny Latimer's killer and then to close Sandbrook. That meant he'd achieved his purpose. He'd wanted to fix things with his daughter, but that wasn't going to happen. Best he could do now was make sure that somehow, some way, Joe Miller didn't get away with this crime.

He'd said he'd learned from what he did with Danny, that and what he'd supposedly done to the cab driver. If he had, he wouldn't have come after Hardy. He would have found somewhere else, someplace else.

Somewhere no one knew him, somewhere he could take his time learning about this side of him, if that _was_ what it was. This could just be revenge, but even so, it was a clumsy sort of thing. Joe hadn't planned enough. He couldn't have.

He'd been forced to act before he was ready, hadn't he? Hardy had been leaving Broadchurch. That forced his plan forward.

So, what did that mean? How could he possibly use that? Danny's death had been an accident, or so Joe had said. He'd flown into a rage trying to stop the boy from telling the truth, and it went too far. His efforts to conceal the crime had undone him, since he'd panicked with the boat and guilt over Jack Marshall had lead him to turn himself in.

Joe had held onto Danny's phone. He should have dumped the damned thing in the water, never let it see the light of day, but he'd held onto it.

Money. Was it money that had driven it to him, or was it the fact that he'd given Danny that phone? Sentimentality. The last piece of Danny he could ever have. A need to control what he could not in life? 

Joe probably had his mobile as well, but the trouble was, that did nothing for Hardy now.

Still, provoking Joe into a panicked kill was about all Hardy had, and as far as plans went, it was a lousy one.

* * *

“No, I don't have a warrant,” Ellie said, running a hand over her face. She didn't understand why this had to be so difficult. At least she'd been able to have this conversation in private, out of Daisy's sight and hearing, since trying to argue this out in front of her disappointment might have been a bit more than she could bear.

She replayed the moments after telling Tom about his father again, about how she'd gone from trying to hold them all together to her son hating her, and she didn't want to go through that again. She didn't want to have Hardy go through it, either.

“This is an emergency,” she repeated. “DI Hardy has been abducted. If you have access to his pacemaker—”

“I can't disclose the details of his care—”

“Oh, yeah? Because I was told before that he'd been in the hospital and discharged himself, that he had a heart arrhythmia,” Ellie said, shaking her head. They'd given her plenty of information, enough to scare her that night. She'd thought the boss she hated was going to die on her that night, and he almost did. “I know the details. Why do you think I'm asking about the damned pacemaker?”

“Ma'am—”

“Don't do that,” she said, not sure why he had, but she didn't want to start down that road. “Just tell me how to access the pacemaker. I need to find Hardy before Joe kills him.”

“You need a warrant,” the doctor insisted. “I can't give you any more information without that. I'm sorry, Detective.”

“Would you give access to his next of kin?” Ellie asked, not sure they had long enough to wait for the courts, but Tess would do it, wouldn't she? She'd find Hardy for his daughter if no one else. “So if his ex-wife were to ask you for this information, you'd give it to her?”

“You'd be better off going through channels,” the doctor told her. “Mr. Hardy changed his contact information when he came into the hospital for surgery. Put a new name down, not one he used before—”

“Ellie Miller?” she asked, thinking that it was absurd and stupid, and yet somehow very much something that wanker would do.

“That's her. So if you find her—”

“I'm Ellie Miller,” she said with some satisfaction after the last disastrous half hour. “Now give me what I need to track down his pacemaker.”

* * *

Hardy did give consideration to attempting to prolong his life. He could have found a way to stall for time with Joe instead of goading him. They'd had wine the last time, yes, but they'd managed some kind of connection. He'd thought it was about the conviction he had that he'd solve the case, but it might have been more Joe's intention of getting him to overtax his heart and die before that happened, to keep him from finding the truth.

He still thought he could have manipulated Joe into keeping him alive, waiting for some sort of vague possibility of rescue. He didn't have much faith in it, though if Miller knew he was missing—more if she knew Joe was loose, she wouldn't stop until she found him. She had to keep her family safe. She'd do anything for that, even save Hardy.

So he thought about it, thought about how he might get Joe to let him live for longer.

Then Joe touched him again, and Hardy said to hell with it.

“How is it you ended up with two kids?”

Joe stilled, staring at him. “What?”

Hardy shrugged. “Can't imagine you were ever that good in bed with Miller, so how is it you have kids? Did you have them done by tube, that it? How was Miller ever satisfied by you?”

Joe's face darkened, and he leaned over into Hardy's face. “What are you saying?”

“I think you know _exactly_ what I'm saying,” Hardy told him, adding a bit of a smile. “I'm saying you're impotent. That's why you went after a little boy.”

And the backlash from that was exactly as he predicted.

* * *

Ellie felt guilty for lying to Daisy, the sort of guilt she always felt disappointing Tom and not being home with Fred. That felt like a failure on her part as a mother, even if she was doing her part to keep their family by working and Joe had seemed like a good dad at the time.

She forced herself not to think about that.

The feed from Hardy's pacemaker was far from good—not in the sense that the technology was bad, that seemed fine from what she'd seen—since it reported on each time it fired, and it had done so several times since Hardy's phone went inactive last night.

He should be dead.

Ellie thought he might be by the time she and the others got to him, which was why she wasn't about to tell his daughter where she was really going or let her come along. She knew Daisy well enough—or she was stereotyping off her own kids or her knowledge of Hardy—to know that she wouldn't stay at the car.

Ellie refused to let the girl see her father like that.

“Turn left up here,” she said, checking the tracker again.

“That's not a road.”

“Just do it,” Ellie ordered, frustrated and almost certain that Joe had picked that route because it didn't look like a road. What better way not to be spotted this close to Broadchurch? He'd want to be close, she knew that. She would want to be close enough to where he'd done so much damage. He still believed that he could have that back, selfish bastard, and she knew that if Hardy was taken for revenge, Joe would move onto the others. Hardy was probably just... convenient, the easiest to reach because he was a loner.

It could have been one of the boys, she knew that, and it terrified her.

The pacemaker app started going crazy, and she looked down at it. Damn it. Hardy was having another heart attack.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie finds Hardy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was, of all things, talking to my cat when I found the last few lines. It felt right.
> 
> Of course, that feeling always goes away when it comes time to hit the post button, but the answer Hardy gave. That fit.

* * *

The app on the phone was still going off in her pocket, vibrating like crazy as she ran up to the cabin. She pushed the door open, ignoring the protests of the uniforms as she went in. She wasn't about to let Hardy die, not when his daughter was waiting for him, not at the hands of her husband. Joe was never going to hurt another person so long as she lived.

She stopped short by the far wall. Whatever Ellie thought she might find when she went in after Hardy and Joe, this wasn't it. Hardy was supposed to be dying, but he was one stubborn bastard. Somehow he'd gotten his bound arm around Joe's neck, choking him, and seemed to be determined to take him with him when he died. He wasn't letting go, even though she didn't know how he had any strength to hold on.

Must have been pure Hardy stubbornness. She never thought she'd be glad of it, but she thought she was damned proud of him.

“Get him out of here,” she ordered, pointing to Joe. She went over to the wall, pushing his arms up and letting them pull Joe away. She gave Hardy a look, but he'd lowered his head, struggling to breathe. “We need the paramedics. You—cut Hardy down. Get him off the wall. Someone get a blanket.”

She knelt down next to Hardy, still feeling the phone in her pocket. It had stopped vibrating, and she was afraid he'd pushed himself too far in trying to stop Joe. “Hardy, you die on me, and so help me, I am going to desecrate your body and your grave.”

His eyelids fluttered, but he didn't wake. 

“DS Miller?” one of the constables asked, one who shouldn't have forgot but had worked with her for so long she couldn't help the mistake. “I've got the blanket. The paramedics are coming.”

Ellie shook her head. Unbelievable. She'd asked for the paramedics before she got in the car herself. She knew they'd need them. They should be here already. She put the blanket around Hardy, knowing he'd lecture her about forensics if he was conscious. He'd say they needed everything to build their case.

She didn't want to think about why Hardy didn't have his clothes, and she wasn't exposing him to everyone, either. He'd just have to accept the blanket.

“Sir,” she said, but he slumped against her, and she sighed. Still, better she was stuck here waiting for the paramedics with Hardy. She didn't know what she'd do to Joe if she got close to him again, and she couldn't damage the case. Not this time.

* * *

“Hardy.”

He forced his eyes open, not sure what he thought he'd find when he did. A dream. Death. Either. Both? He didn't know. He could have angered Joe enough to end it—or at least push it to where his pacemaker couldn't compensate for it. That would explain Miller's presence, wouldn't it?

Wait. Hadn't he managed to... no. That couldn't be right. He must be remembering it wrong. He hadn't gotten Joe close, couldn't have done anything to him.

“What... what are you...”

“If you try to say anything about me saving your life, I'll smack you, you knob,” Miller told him, and he realized he was leaning against her. Shouldn't she hate that? Must be extreme circumstances. Or he was dead and none of it was real. “Can't believe you said that to your own daughter, you bloody moron.”

“What?” He was too tired, too confused for that. Why was Miller talking about his daughter?

“About stopping your heart? That's not something you joke about.”

He groaned. He didn't know why Daisy would have told anyone about that, though she was probably still mad at him for it. He couldn't blame her. He'd been trying to make his heart seem like less of a problem than it was, and it hadn't worked. He was rubbish at that sort of thing, as Daisy had always told him. “Humor... not a strong point.”

“No. Though... You did all right with that bit about Dirty Brian,” he said. She pointed a finger at him. “I'm only saying that because you almost died again. Wanker. I won't say it again. You're a bastard. And I don't know why I'm so angry with you when it was my husband that almost killed you.”

Hardy grunted, trying to sit up only to have her push him back.

“Don't move. Not until the paramedics come back to get you out of here. I won't have you dying on me. Or your daughter,” Miller said. He frowned again, but she nodded. “Daisy's here. Not here, here, I wasn't going to let her see that if you had gotten yourself killed, but she came as soon as she realized you were missing. You owe her. And not just an apology.”

“She... she told you...”

Miller nodded. “Your daughter has good instincts. Knew you were missing. Even knew how to find you using your pacemaker.”

“She won't like... if you're soppy.”

Miller rolled her eyes. “You damn well should be soppy. You love that girl, you make it through this for her, and you stop being such a knob. Take care of yourself. For her.”

“Bloody hell... think I was... doing... before Joe...”

“What did he do to you?”

Hardy shook his head. “Don't want to talk about that.”

* * *

“Dad?”

Daisy didn't want to go close to the bed. She knew it was stupid, being so afraid, but she was. A fear had gripped her, so hard she couldn't breathe and felt like she was in a horror film only this was just a hospital. Supposed to be safe, and he was supposed to be fine. He was alive, and Miller kept saying that was because of her, but if she hadn't pushed her forward, Daisy would still be standing in her father's doorway trying to convince herself not to run.

“Daize...”

She ran the last few steps, hitting the bed and taking hold of his hand.

“Soppy.”

“Shut it,” she muttered, shaking her head at him. She knew it was bad. If it wasn't, her father would already have left the hospital. He never stayed in long, no matter how bad it was—and he was always trying to make her think it wasn't as bad as it was.

“Missed you,” he said, and she squeezed his hand. She should have let him have a real hug, a proper hug, back when they had dinner together. She didn't know why she had to be so... stupid. He'd just say it was being a kid.

“Missed you, too,” Daisy said. She leaned over and gave him a kiss. Then she glared at him. “Don't ever do that to me again.”

He groaned. “Wasn't like... planned it. Was just... expecting you not to want to see me. Went anyway, like a sop, and he... he was just there.”

Daisy nodded. She knew he hadn't planned on it. She'd read about the trial, about Joe Miller's guilt not being proven, about all sorts of things, including what led her to her mother's lies. She knew her father well enough to know that he wouldn't stop trying to put Joe Miller away. She'd heard plenty of rows between her parents over that sort of thing over the years.

_The case is closed, Alec. Closed. Why can't you ever let it go?_

Daisy shook that thought off. Now it was closed. She was sure of it. Joe Miller might have gotten away with what he'd done to Danny Latimer, but he couldn't do it this time. Not when they'd caught him with her dad and her dad was still alive to tell them what that guy had done.

“I want to live with you.”

“What about... your mom?”

She shook her head. “No. Not with her. Not for a bit.”

He frowned. “Daisy—”

“I know,” Daisy told him. “About Sandbrook. About what Mom did.”

He sighed. “That wasn't—”

“And I'm mad at you, too, but I know why you did what you did, and I'd rather be with you,” Daisy said. “Well, if Miller will let me, since she says you're staying with her after you get out of here.”

“What?”

* * *

“They said you tried to check yourself out of here,” Ellie said, tempted to smack him. At least he wasn't moving now, probably because he couldn't. Stupid wanker. Why couldn't he accept that he had a condition? “What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?”

“How many people saw?”

“Saw what?”

Hardy gave her a glare, and she relented. She hadn't expected him to forget that Joe had taken his clothes or that he'd had to be rescued without them. She knew he had to feel humiliated, this proud man who'd hidden his heart condition and almost let it kill him rather than allow it to stop him or anyone to know about it.

“You were choking the life out of Joe. Not sure anyone saw until he was out of the way, but then I got you a blanket,” Ellie told him. If she'd expected gratitude, she wouldn't get it, not from him. She knew that. “Made the others gather evidence and deal with Joe.”

Hardy nodded, though his brow furrowed a bit. “Evidence?”

“Everything Joe had there,” Ellie told him. “Everything that was yours. He wasn't able to dispose of anything. We have all of it.”

“Cab driver?”

She shook her head. “Haven't found his body yet. Not sure where Joe stashed it, but they're going over the whole area by that cabin. We'll find it. I won't let him keep that family from burying their loved one. He claimed that he did that for Danny, didn't he? That he gave Mark and Beth his body and that somehow made it better.”

“He also said he learned from that,” Hardy said. “He didn't want them to find that body.”

Ellie swallowed. “And yours?”

Hardy shook his head. She winced. She supposed it would have been dangerous if Joe had let Hardy be found, just like it was now. Hardy surviving would ruin him. He would put that bastard away for a long time. 

“I'm sorry.”

Hardy looked like he was going to throw his pillow at her. “What for? Aside from saying I'm going home with you—that's not happening, by the way. No need to apologize. That's too nice. We don't do nice.”

“You don't. I do,” she disagreed. She shook her head. “He was a monster. I married a man who killed a child. And he got away with it because of my mistakes. I lost my head, and I hurt him. He deserved it, but it threw out his confession. And I gave my sister money, so she told me about the man with the bin bag, and they twisted that up—”

“That doesn't make you responsible for what he did. Not to Danny. And not to me.”

Ellie snorted. Him and his crap platitudes again. “What did he do to you?”

“I'll give a formal statement,” Hardy said. A look passed over his face, and she thought he was considering the implications of that, of what he would have to testify to and what he'd have to tell everyone, what would be on formal record. “He won't walk free. Not this time.”

She nodded. “I know. I just... He could have killed you.”

“That did seem to be the likely end,” Hardy agreed, leaning back and closing his eyes. “All paths leading to the same place.”

“Why didn't he do it right away, then?”

“Said he had to understand,” Hardy answered, and the words made her sick, thinking of her own need expressed back in his hotel room, that conversation that gave the defense basis for their accusation.

“Understand what?” Ellie asked, but then she winced. “He... He was trying to see if he liked men, not just boys?”

Hardy grunted, but that was answer enough. Ellie felt like puking all over again.

“Do... do you think he did?” Ellie asked. "Understood, I mean."

Hardy shook his head. “No.”


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy and Miller find a way to cope no matter how Joe pleads this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted this fic to be done after the last chapter. It should have been, but there was that lingering unfinished sense, and a comment, and... well, I went back.
> 
> And I was going to post it as a stand alone, but it doesn't, so I'm tacking this chapter on here.
> 
> *sigh*

* * *

“Hardy? What the bloody hell are you doing on my step at this time of night?”

He didn't answer, but Ellie didn't need him to, not really. Joe's plea hearing was in a few hours, and Hardy was at her door looking half-dead again. He'd had some kind of nightmare or flashback, not that she ever expected him to admit that.

She opened the door, ushering him inside. She had wanted to keep him here longer after he got out of the hospital, but he'd had his daughter with him, and they hadn't enough space to force that issue. He'd gone back to his little shack with Daisy and seemed well enough, though knowing him, that was a lie, too.

“Tell me you did not send your daughter away when you need her most, you wanker.”

Hardy reached over to push the door shut. “Don't want her at the trial. She doesn't need to know those things.”

Ellie tried not to grimace. She didn't want to picture it, had never asked for all of the details herself, but even just knowing that they'd found Hardy without clothes was more than most people needed. She'd heard some nasty rumors about what happened, and she didn't doubt there were more.

“So you sent her back to her mother?”

“Was part of our arrangement. She got to stay with me, but she still had to work things out with her mother,” Hardy said. “She hadn't. So she had no choice.”

“She's as stubborn as you are.”

He shook his head. “Was an excuse. She didn't want to leave me alone.”

Ellie couldn't blame Daisy for that. Hardy might not have been dead, might not have been as sick as he was before, but he'd been through another nightmare even worse than Sandbrook, one more personal and intimate, an attack on his body and mind, and given how much damage something more distant, something like Pippa's death had done to him, Ellie figured Hardy had no business being alone. Ever. Not that he'd accept that.

“She's right.”

“Oh, don't start, Miller,” he muttered, heading back into her kitchen. As much as she'd wanted to keep him where she could watch him, she had made a mistake in letting him get so familiar with her home. He went about it like he belonged here, and he was already making tea by the time she got into the room.

“You want to tell me she should leave you when you show up here in the middle of the night?” Ellie demanded. “I don't have to be even halfway intelligent to know that this is wrong. You're here. You're not sleeping. How long has that been going on? And don't say since Daisy left. I won't believe you. You barely slept with Danny. With Sandbrook. And now this—”

“I came because I'm out of tea and all the shops are closed,” Hardy told her, and she stared at him, trying to understand why he'd think she'd buy that. Though, actually, it was probably true. If he was waking every night, he'd be out of tea in no time, and Daisy was more likely to buy it than him, so if he'd sent her off, no one had been for the shopping.

“I hate you,” Ellie told him, and he held out a cup to her. She took it, breathing in the steam. “Thank you.”

He said nothing, sipping from his own cup. She did the same until she couldn't take the silence any longer.

“Do you think he'll do it? Plead guilty this time?”

Hardy tensed, and she had an answer again. That was it. The reason he'd sent his daughter away. He didn't think Joe would do it. He thought that he'd plead not guilty again and force them all through a second trial. This one wouldn't fall apart the same way—she hadn't done anything the defense could twist into a way to get Joe off. Not this time. No cheques, no supposed affairs—though she was sure they'd try and use his bit of convalescence at her house against them—and she knew they had forensics to tie everything together.

“It's the body, isn't it?” Ellie asked. “That cab driver. If we'd found him, we'd have Joe, and he wouldn't dare try to get off again.”

Hardy nodded, returning to his tea. That was still bitter to both of them, that failed search. She'd been taken off of it and the CS went in charge herself, but that hadn't changed anything. They hadn't found the body, and that man's family would never be able to prove that Joe had killed him. CPS wasn't going after him for that, just for his abduction and assault on Hardy. That was what they could prove, and they were determined to stick to that, keep it tight and neat.

Ellie thought it was crap, and she knew she wasn't the only one, but at least Beth and Mark would get some justice, knowing their son's killer was locked away. Not for Danny, no, but it was so much better than Joe being free to hurt someone else.

“What do we do, then?”

Hardy set down his cup. She figured it was empty now. “I testify, if I have to. We go through the trial, and he gets put away.”

“And everything that was just a formal statement before becomes public knowledge,” Ellie said, wondering just how much that would destroy this proud, damaged man.

“Better me than your son,” Hardy told her, and she shuddered, grateful and horrified all at the same time.

* * *

Tom Miller, sitting on the stairs and listening to his mother and Hardy in the kitchen, took out his phone and started writing a text message. He'd put the number in his contacts weeks ago, and he knew it was a good thing he had it.

_You were right,_ he told Daisy. _He's still having nightmares._

She didn't take more than a few seconds to respond. _I knew it._

_He thinks my dad won't plead guilty._

_Bastard._

Then, a second later, came another. _Sorry. I mean... I suppose I shouldn't say those things about your dad._

_I used to say them about yours,_ Tom typed back, and he winced, again. Hardy might have been a jerk to his mum during the investigation, and Tom hadn't liked him much for arresting his father. He'd hated him after the defense said his mum had cheated on his dad with him—that wasn't true, he knew that now—but Hardy had just stood in his kitchen and said he'd rather have Tom's dad hurt him instead of Tom.

He looked back to the kitchen, wishing he knew what to do.

* * *

“You should probably shower and clean yourself up,” Miller said, and he looked over at her. They'd spent the night sitting on her couch, and he ached in places he'd forgotten existed, but he knew neither of them would have slept after his visit. He didn't remember much of their conversation, not that they talked much. They just sat, with tea, and waited out the hours.

That was all too familiar for him.

“Court,” Miller prodded him, nudging him with an elbow. “Remember? Joe's plea will be entered today.”

“I haven't forgotten.”

“You shouldn't go in looking like you were out on a bender.”

He snorted. “Had a case back when I was still a PC. Was injured in the arrest, and the doctors were talking possible permanent damage. Two lawyers. One wanted me dressed and pressed, looking official and proud, the picture of law enforcement. Other one wanted me a mess, wanted to show the toll the whole thing had taken on my life, how it had 'ruined' me.”

Miller grimaced. “I suppose there are people who think that you're just some grumpy wanker and that what Joe did to you didn't matter, didn't affect you at all, but that isn't true. You shouldn't have to prove it by looking like a wreck—but you can't give him that satisfaction, either. He doesn't get to win by having that sort of power over you.”

Hardy didn't bother mentioning that the power existed—in nightmares and flashbacks, moments that came at random like the episodes with his heart, stealing away peace and putting him back where he was about to die and was being groped by a child killer.

“I'll shower,” he said. He checked the clock. “Should have walked back by now, though.”

“We can drive you over there. Let me get Tom up and dress Fred to leave him at the childminder's, and we'll go.”

Hardy shook his head. “That's not necessary.”

She touched his arm. “Hardy, you said it yourself last night. That could have been Tom or Fred. It could have been any of a dozen children. I still hate myself because it was Danny and I never saw it. You... You didn't deserve it. He shouldn't have gone after you, but he did, and because he did, he will stay in prison. He will go there, and stay there, and we will all be safe from him. And that is something I will never stop owing you for, never stop being grateful for. I know I'll still get angry with you, and I'm still going to think you're a knob and a wanker and—”

“If you say tosser—”

“—and a right bastard, but I do owe you. And I'd like to say solving Sandbrook was enough, but it doesn't feel like it,” she finished. “You want more tea? Something to eat?”

“No.”

“Could you find us a case?”

“What?”

“You know,” Miller said as she rose. “We got through the horror of Joe's first trial because we were working Sandbrook together. I needed that distraction. You needed the closure. Can you get us that again? You have more contacts than I do. I'm sure there are other parents in situations like Mark and Beth who need answers. Or just another cold case. We could do it. Without official channels, 'course, but we don't necessarily need them.”

“Former detectives club?”

“Yeah. Sounds good, doesn't it?”

“Aye, it does.”


End file.
